Ukraine's drone defense tech reshapes combat as warfare evolves

John Yang:

Earlier this month, President Trump said he didn't want Ukraine's help with drone defense, saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was the last person he'd turned to.

But, as the -- with the war with Iran continuing, countries in the Gulf have been lining up for Ukraine's guidance on how to counter drones. Just today, Zelenskyy was in Saudi Arabia to strike a deal with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Special correspondent Simon Ostrovsky filed this report from Ukraine.

Simon Ostrovsky:

At a secret location in Ukraine, a local drone manufacturer demos its latest weapons, a Sting drone capable of intercepting the Iranian-designed Shahed suicide drone Russia routinely launches into Ukraine.

The Sting is fast, accurate, and, crucially, cheap. Since its first successful strike a year ago, interceptors like this one, made by the defense tech firm Wild Hornets, have taken out around 4,000 Shahed-type drones.

This Sting drone is a perfect example of the asymmetric warfare that Ukrainians excel at. It costs between $1,300 and $2,200, and it goes up against Iranian and Russian Shahed drones that cost around $50,000 to make.

It's a technology that until now has largely been ignored by America's defense tech industry that's traditionally focused on making exquisite and expensive weaponry that can take decades to develop.

President Donald Trump:

Don't tell us what we're going to feel.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Instead, the White House has stepped back from Ukraine, appropriating no new funds for the war since Trump took office.

This hurts Ukraine's war effort against Russia, of course, but there are increasing concerns in Washington that it's also making the U.S. less able to recognize and prepare for a host of emerging threats from American adversaries like Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, who are all working together and absorbing lessons from the Ukrainian battlefield.

Now the Iran war has exposed America's overreliance on multimillion-dollar munitions to shoot down cheap Iranian Shaheds, according to Wild Hornets spokesman Alex Roslin, who argues the math just doesn't make sense.

Alex Roslin, Spokesperson, Wild Hornets (through interpreter):

They're using $4 million Patriot missiles. Patriots are scarce. But the United States has reportedly used 300 Patriots to knock down Shahed drones fired by Iran. That's $1.2 billion of Patriots against 300 Shaheds. And we could have taken down those drones with our interceptor drones for around $600,000. That's something that the world could learn from Ukraine.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Not everyone is ignoring developments in Ukraine. A representative of General Cherry, another Ukrainian drone company that makes a staggering 100,000 drones per month, which, incidentally, is the total amount of drones made in America annually, said interest in their technology has surged since the start of the Iran war.

Did the interest in joint production, joint manufacturing, did it increase after the war in Iran started?

Marko Kushnir, Communications Director, General Cherry:

Yes, they have a lot of interest in us. We have more than 10 different negotiations in process right now.

Simon Ostrovsky:

The reason it's so important for these drones to be battle-tested is because Ukrainian engineers from companies like General Cherry that has designed this new prototype are constantly improving the design. And this one here takes the original drone interceptor to the next level.

The reason that these workstations are empty right now is because the engineers who usually work here are out in the field testing these.

Marko Kushnir:

Our soldiers make it on the positions.

Simon Ostrovsky:

General Cherry's updated model will fly at close to 250 miles per hour, fast enough to take out a jet-powered Shahed.

In just a few years, the company has managed to set up a full production line, from 3-D-printing parts to testing its ready drones. A small handful of American defense companies are actually developing their technology out of Ukraine.

Brian Streem, Founder, Vermeer:

We essentially use this to kind of capture data.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Vermeer, founded by New Yorker Brian Streem, is one.

Brian Streem:

It's just replacing the GPS antenna.

Simon Ostrovsky:

The firm produces navigation systems that allow drones carrying several hundred pounds of munitions to fly deep into enemy territory undetected, using an A.I.-driven navigation system that's immune to spoofing and jamming. Vermeer's clients include the Ukrainian armed forces and the U.S. Air Force.

Brian Streem:

The Russians are very good at jamming and spoofing GPS. So, my company, we build a solution for that. We call it VPS, visual positioning system. Information is power.

The information I'm sharing back to Americans is incredibly powerful, very valuable to any nation that wants to compete in this newfound kind of drone unmanned arms race we appear to be involved in. The more we kind of pull back, we will lose out tremendously.

Simon Ostrovsky:

America's relationship with Ukraine has changed drastically since Trump came into office. In the years following the invasion, Congress approved massive aid and arms packages amounting to nearly $175 billion in total since 2022, making Ukraine the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance in modern history.

Since Trump took office, that number has dropped to zero dollars. While everyone agrees that America's pivot away from Kyiv hurts Ukraine, some are starting to wonder aloud if it hurts America too.

Ukrainians in terms of weapons sales.

I put this question to a panel of security experts at a recent U.S.-Ukraine security summit in Washington.

Debra Cagan, Atlantic Council:

The less you invest, the less presence you have of U.S. people on the ground learning what's going on. And I would say, but we have cut off our nose to spite our face. We're going to cost our taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in failed expertise because we're not listening.

Simon Ostrovsky:

At the same time, America's main adversaries, China, Iran and North Korea, have all continued to support their ally Russia in the war. As a major supplier of both the Russian and Ukrainian defense sectors, China is especially positioned to suck up information from both sides of the front line.

Rush Doshi, Council on Foreign Relations: The Chinese are learning a lot from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Rush Doshi covers China at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. In 2022, when Russian invaded Ukraine, he was on the China team at the National Security Council. He says Beijing's own military capabilities are advancing thanks to its backing of Moscow.

Rush Doshi:

They have seen that the Russians initially did not perform well. They want to fix that. Second, they're learning about the future of warfare, what exactly matters in a conflict in the 21st century, where you have seen the proliferation of drones and other technology that wasn't as salient in past conflicts. They're learning more about that.

Third, they have learned a lot about the need to sustain your own industrial base and economy. Right now, you could argue the U.S. has learned some of that lesson, but we're slower to adopt that lesson and diffuse it through our military than China.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Recent reporting suggests the Trump administration is learning its lesson the hard way. After coming under sustained attack from Iranian Shaheds, the American military is now working with Ukrainian advisers in the Middle East, after having initially refused a Ukrainian proposal to partner on interceptor drones last year.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Simon Ostrovsky in Ukraine.